Political Quotes

“Mr. President, later today, the House of Representatives will pass a proposal that will be supported by 95, 97 percent of Americans. This is a proposal to make sure anybody in this country who wants to buy a gun in a legitimate transaction has to go through a background check--a background check that in 90 percent of the cases takes less than 5 minutes of time. That background check will assure that only people who should be buying guns and owning guns will be buying and owning guns--people who don't have violent criminal histories and people who don't have histories of serious mental illness. It is a popular proposal. It is an impactful proposal. It will save thousands of lives all across this country. I have come down to the floor to just remind my colleagues as to why this is so important, and I want to tell a quick story to try to put a little meat on the bone when it comes to this conversation we are having about the importance of making sure people go through background checks before they buy weapons. Mr. President, 2008 to 2012 was a period of time in this country's history where violence was declining. Homicides were declining. Gun murders were declining. They were declining across the country. Specifically during that period of time, they were declining in the Midwest. Yet there was one State that stood out as a curious outlier during that period of time, and that was the State of Missouri.…”